“Sleep what off? I never finished my first beer.”
Gustafson whirled Ben around and grabbed him by the throat. “Look, you piece of crap, I’m doing the best I can to control my temper. So just shut up and don’t try my patience.” He shoved Ben down the corridor and out of sight of the cells.
“I don’t understand. What have I ever done to you?”
Ben could see right off the bat that he should have remained silent. Gustafson was seething; his rage was already on the verge of boiling over. “You remember that car your boys torched two months ago because you mistakenly thought it belonged to the Vietnamese?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Well, my little sister was on the sidewalk beside the car. Got caught in the explosion. She almost died—been having health problems ever since. Her face was ruined.”
“But that wasn’t me!” Ben protested.
“When something horrible like that happens to your sister, it just does something to you. Tears you apart. Makes you go a little crazy.” He looked up at Ben. “Makes you want to kill the man responsible.”
“I’m telling you, I never hurt—”
“She was beautiful,” Gustafson said, stony-eyed. “But now she’s—” With the sudden fury of a hurricane, Gustafson whipped out his billy club and pounded Ben on the back. The sudden pain was so shattering that Ben found he couldn’t make a sound. His knees weakened; his back felt paralyzed.
“My little sister never hurt anyone. That’s for goddamn sure. So don’t come crying to me for sympathy.”
Ben leaned against the wall for support. “But I … wasn’t involved … didn’t even know …”
“Liar.” Gustafson pounded him again, this time on the rib cage. “Admit it. Admit you knew about the firebombing!”
“I’m just”—Ben gasped—“a lawyer.”
Gustafson spun him around and shoved him face-first into the wall. Ben’s cheek scraped against the speckled concrete. “All the worse, as far as I’m concerned. At least the boys in Cell Block B believe in what they’re doing. You’re just in it for the money.”
Ben’s reply was smothered as Gustafson jerked him away from the wall. The next blow from the billy club caught Ben on the side of the head. He fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
Gustafson rammed the club under Ben’s throat, drove his knee into Ben’s spine, and pulled upward. His knee burrowed into Ben’s back while the club flattened his larynx.
Then, abruptly, Gustafson removed the club and let Ben’s head fall to the floor. Ben braced himself for the next blow, but it never came. Instead he heard the sound of Gustafson’s boots moving down the corridor.
Wasn’t he afraid Ben would try to escape? Ben almost laughed. He couldn’t even move. The thought of trying to stand up hurt him more than he could bear.
He heard Gustafson open the door and leave the cell corridor. Ben lay there on the floor, unable to move, unable to help himself, racked with pain.
And he realized, with sudden and terrible certainty, that he was absolutely, totally—
Alone.
14.
COLONEL NGUYEN SAT IN the center of the chicken barn that served as Coi Than Tien’s town hall. On his left, his old friend Duong Dang sat with the council of elders, the nominal governing body of their community. On his right, “Dan” Pham sat with his followers, principally the younger members of the settlement.
The two groups could not have been more polarized. It was the old guard versus the young Turks, the voice of conciliation pitted against the voice of resistance. And there seemed to be no middle ground that either side could accept.
Dang tapped a small gavel. “Now that we have resolved the guard-duty issue, we will address Dinh Pham’s suggestions about a possible response to last night’s incident.”
Pham leaped to his feet. “We must fight back! We must retaliate!”
Dang pounded his gavel. “You have not been properly recognized.”
“Everyone knows who I am.”
“That is not the point. It is a matter of courtesy, of tradition—”
“I’m not interested in traditions. I’m interested in retaliation.”
“There are proper ways to proceed—” “My grandmother was shot!” Pham shouted. His voice echoed through the barn, rattling the rafters on the roof. A horrible silence blanketed the barn.
Colonel Nguyen closed his eyes. As he had learned last night after the black pickup disappeared, some of the ricocheting pellets had pierced a window and struck Pham’s elderly grandmother. Although the injury was not itself terminal, at her age, any wound could be life threatening.
Dang stroked his white beard. “We all grieve with you for Xuan’s injury.”
“Grieving is not enough. It is time for action!”
Nguyen shook his head. There was such a difference between Pham and Dang. Dang still spoke in the old traditional ways; Pham had fully assimilated the slang and rhetoric of his adopted country. And what they said was as different as the way they said it. Dang spoke with caution, with concern for all possible ramifications. He was slow to anger, and equally slow to take action. Pham was younger in spirit and temperament; he was unwilling to accept the world as it was. There was more of America about him than of Vietnam.
Pham turned to address the entire assembly. “A gentle woman in her seventies who has never done harm to anyone was struck by a shotgun blast to her shoulder blade. What are we going to do about it?”
Nguyen watched Pham as he made his appeal to the masses. He was impressed with Pham’s bearing, his strength, his natural aptitude for leadership. At the same time Pham’s words filled him with apprehension. Nguyen knew Pham’s inflammatory speech could only lead Coi Than Tien in one direction.
Another elder, Vanh Truong, intervened. “I am told that your grandmother will recover.”
“Her shoulder blade is shattered!” Pham spat out. “This is intolerable!”
“It seems to me,” Dang said, “that we have a choice.”
“We must choose to fight!” Pham yelled, interrupting Dang. A spattering of cheers punctuated his cry, mostly from the younger men in the barn.
“That is not among the choices,” Dang said, maintaining a calm, even voice. “The choice is whether we remain and endure, or whether we move on.”
“Whether we run! That’s what you mean. Whether we run like cowards as we did before. Well, I for one will not run!” More cheers and applause followed, even stronger than before. His support was growing.
“If we remain here,” Truong said, “we risk continued harassment.” He looked directly at Pham. “If we fight, we risk extermination.”
“And where will you go when there is nowhere left to run?” Pham demanded. “When the forces of hate have hounded us to the ends of the earth. What then?”
Dang waved his hands. “The decision to leave has not yet been made. This is simply an open discussion. We must consider our options.”
“I will not accept an option without honor!”
A smart boy, Nguyen thought. Pham was reaching out now, sounding a chord that would appeal to the older members of the community as well as the young. This was the turning point. If Nguyen was going to speak, he could delay no longer.
“Excuse me, Elder Dang.” Colonel Nguyen quietly interjected himself into the debate. “It is possible that honor can be found in all options.”
Pham looked at him with dismay and disappointment. “Colonel Nguyen! Surely a warrior such as yourself does not say we should run.”
Nguyen diverted his eyes. “A brave man knows when to show his back to the enemy.”
“And what does that mean?”
He hesitated. “It means there is no honor in fighting if it costs us our souls. Or our families.”